
WBB: Buffs hit trifecta against UCLA
Mar 7th
Story by B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor, CUBuffs.com
SEATTLE – College basketball in March is all about surviving and advancing – and the Colorado women’s team did both Thursday afternoon in the opening round of the Pac-12 Conference Tournament.
Overtaking UCLA with a 15-2 run midway through the second half, the Buffaloes defeated the Bruins 76-65 to reach the tournament quarterfinals for the third time since beginning Pac-12 competition in 2011.
But the assignment Friday at KeyArena (1 p.m. MT, Pac-12 Networks) is daunting: No. 9 seed CU (17-13) faces No. 1 seed Stanford (28-2). The Cardinal defeated the Buffs 87-77 on Jan. 12 in Boulder in their only regular-season meeting.
“I think we’re ready for them . . . it’s win or go home,” said CU senior guard Brittany Wilson. “So you lay it all on the floor, and we’re ready. We all have to come out and play 40 minutes. In the end, it’s about who plays 40 minutes the best.”
In defeating the Bruins (13-18) for the third time this season, Wilson and her twin sister, Ashley, gave the Buffs 55 quality minutes between them. The Wilson sisters combined for 33 points – 17 from Brittany, a career-high 16 from Ashley – to offset a game-high 23 points from UCLA sophomore Nirra Fields.
Lexy Kresl contributed 14 points off the bench for the Buffs – nine of them in the second half when they rallied from a 46-38 deficit. Kresl’s 3-pointer – the last of eight in 16 attempts for CU – gave the Buffs their largest lead of the game, 68-56, with 2:50 remaining. The Bruins never got closer than six points the rest of the way.
“I’m really excited for our team,” CU coach Linda Lappe said. “Any time you can win a game in postseason, it’s a plus.”
After a 29-29 halftime tie, the Bruins – despite being minus senior guard and No. 2 scorer Thea Lemberger (concussion) who was averaging 15.0 points – went on an 11-2 run and took their 46-38 lead. But Lappe and the Buffs adjusted defensively, nudging the Bruins out of their comfort zone and disrupting their offense.
Said Lappe: “They were really comfortable (offensively) to start the second half. Everybody was making shots, even players that don’t normally make shots. You could just see them start to get comfortable in what they were doing. I always think your defense has a huge part in that, and we wanted to try to make them uncomfortable, so we started to trap a little bit and tried to speed them up and make them do things they weren’t as comfortable doing, making them pass to players, making them pass over hands, and just increasing our aggressiveness.”
UCLA coach Cori Close agreed: “I thought they really got us out of rhythm in the second half . . . they got out and started denying passing lanes and trapped our first pass and really got us out of rhythm. We’re a team that needs to move the pieces around and hide certain mismatches and take advantage of other ones. They really made us play just a read-and-react type of situation, and it made it a guard game. We needed to attack off the dribble, and we didn’t have quite enough people that were confident in that kind of game.”
CU’s strategy worked. Of UCLA’s 13 turnovers, eight were committed in the second half. CU, meanwhile, cut its miscues from nine in the first half to four in the second. The Buffs outrebounded the Bruins 43-35 and held them to 38.8 percent shooting from the field (26-of-67). CU shot slightly better at 39.3 percent (24-of-61).
Lappe lauded her bench, which outscored the Bruins’ reserves 28-16, as being “fantastic . . . everybody did their job. Everybody knew their role. When we played together in that game, we were fantastic. When we moved the ball, when we played together defensively, hit the open player, and then we knocked down those open shots and everything seemed to go our way.”
The Wilson sisters accounted for four of CU’s eight 3-pointers, with Brittany hitting three of her six attempts and Ashley one of her two. The Buffs 50 percent performance from behind the arc, bolstered by four-of-six in the second half, followed a frigid 10 percent (3-of-30) from long range in the final three regular-season games. Thursday’s eight 3-pointers tie for the second most of the season.
“Me and coach watched film before we left (Boulder) , and one thing that she noticed about my shots was I was falling out of my shots,” Brittany Wilson said. “She said there is no reason I should be doing that on the three, and just stay in my shot, and that’s exactly what I did and they fell.”
If the Bruins were without Lemberger, the Buffs also were minus their No. 2 scorer – junior Jen Reese, who went down in the first half of the CU-UCLA meeting in Boulder with a broken bone in her shoulder. Ashley Wilson said the Buffs have adjusted well: “With any team, adversity is going to come. So it’s just about how you respond to adversity and how tough you’re willing to be and how much you’re willing to bounce back. We’ve done that all year long, no matter injuries or whatever. No team is going to feel sorry for you because you have injuries. You have to suit up and be ready to go the next day.”
Fields, a 5-9 sophomore, opened the scoring for UCLA and by the time the first half was over had collected 16 of the Bruins’ 29 points. The Buffs matched that total for a 29-29 halftime tie, but no CU player could manage over six points – the Wilson sisters had six each – in the first 20 minutes.
After Fields hit her jumper for the game’s first basket, the Buffs took control and rolled to a 17-10 advantage before the Bruins settled down. The teams traded baskets and the lead until the halftime buzzer ended play at 29-29. UCLA outscored CU 15-7 in the opening 6 minutes of the second half to take an eight-point (46-38) lead before the Buffs regrouped, went on their decisive run, tied the score at 46-46 on a 3-pointer from the right wing by Lauren Huggins and went ahead for good on a basket by Brittany Wilson.
After Kresl’s trey gave them their largest lead – 68-56 – the Buffs finished out their scoring at the free throw line. Their 20-of-24 performance included Kresl and Brittany Wilson each going four-for-four in the final 1:15 to keep UCLA at bay.
The Buffs move on, the Bruins go home. “We’re not ready to be done playing yet, and I think you can see how much intensity we played in the second half that we want to keep playing,” Lappe said. “I’m just excited for our entire team.”

CU symposium: Is digital journalism an oxymoron?
Mar 6th
at CU-Boulder symposium March 14-15
Students, scholars and media professionals will discuss media “in the fast-paced world of digital journalism” at a University of Colorado Boulder symposium March 14-15.
CU-Boulder’s Journalism and Mass Communication program will host the conference including two talks that are free and open to the public.
Jay Rosen will give one of the talks on March 14 at 10 a.m. at the Old Main Chapel. Rosen, who will discuss “The Ethics of Point-of-View Journalism,” is a journalism professor at New York University and a media critic. He is an adviser at First Look Media, a new venture featuring the work of Glenn Greenwald, who published the explosive national security documents leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden. Rosen also writes the blog PressThink.
At 2 p.m. on March 14 at the Old Main Chapel, Steve Buttry will present “Upholding and Updating Journalism Values.” Buttry is the digital transformation editor for Digital First Media. The company operates about 800 multi-platform media products nationally, including several in Colorado. He is a prominent consultant in digital journalism and author of the blog The Buttry Diary.
During other portions of the symposium, participants will explore issues such as the loss of the “ethics support group” found in traditional newsrooms for today’s freelancers, developers and entrepreneurs; today’s ethics challenges in the journalism work environment; and what the latest research and journalistic practice says about norms and values in the digital age.
“Technology has enabled new forms of public communication that raise new kinds of ethical questions,” said Paul Voakes, CU-Boulder professor of journalism and mass communication. “For example: When corrections can be made seamlessly and instantly online, is first-time accuracy now overrated? What are the appropriate journalistic uses of drones? In a profession increasingly populated by developers, activists, entrepreneurs and volunteers, where does a code of ethics fit?”
Excluding the two public talks, symposium participants will work in groups to write brief papers about the issues discussed. The papers could lead to collaborative essays or research projects, according to symposium organizers.
The symposium is supported by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, Colorado State University and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
For more information about CU-Boulder’s Journalism and Mass Communication program visit http://journalism.colorado.edu/.
-CU-

Buffs Withstand Cardinal Rally, Hold On For 59-56 Win
Mar 6th
STANFORD, Calif. – After back-to-back losses, the Colorado men’s basketball team got the win it desperately needed, holding on to defeat Stanford 59-56 Wednesday night in a game that likely will prove to be critical as March Madness looms.
Colorado (21-9, 10-7 Pac-12) withstood a Stanford comeback at Maples Pavilion and made free throws down the stretch to pick up its 21st regular season victory, matching the 1996-97 team for the best in school history.
“Getting a victory like this on the road is huge for our team,” CU coach Tad Boyle said on KOA Radio 850. “This team has an opportunity to set itself apart from any other team in the University of Colorado basketball history.”
Securing the win, Boyle continued, “wasn’t easy. Our defense played good enough to keep us in the game until our offense got back going.”
Leading 46-38 after a jumper by Askia Booker with 14:15 to play, the Buffaloes watched the Cardinal (18-11, 9-8) come back to tie the game at 46-46. CU didn’t score again until Xavier Johnson’s jump shot with 5:59 remaining produced a 48-46 lead.
A 13-2 run briefly gave Stanford a late lead, but CU refused to wilt. Although still trailing the Cardinal 9-6 in the series, the Buffaloes lead 3-2 in Pac-12 play with three consecutive wins. It is the longest winning streak in the series dating to 1932.
“This was a big win for us,” said Johnson, one of two Buffs in double figures with 14 points. “For us to go nine minutes without scoring and still come out with the victory means that we’ve made great progress as a team.”
Josh Scott led CU with 17 points and 11 rebounds, posting his 12th double-double of the season and the 14th of his career.
Chasson Randle dominated for Stanford, scoring a game-high 24 points on 9-for-18 shooting from the field, while teammate Josh Huestis added nine points.
Colorado had a comfortable eight point lead in the second half until Randle single-handedly brought the Cardinal back. In its 13-2 run, Randle accounted for 10 points, including a 7-0 run of his own. Thanks in part to his heroics, Stanford managed to recapture its first lead since the 11:29 mark in the first half.
But the Buffs refused to crumble, answering with a 7-0 run capped by a Xavier Talton 3-pointer to take a 55-51 lead. However, Randle answered again with a conventional three-point play to bring Stanford within one (55-54) with 1:17 remaining.
With 45 seconds left, Colorado committed a shot-clock violation, giving Stanford possession. The Cardinal again looked to Randle for the lead but Askia Booker stripped him of the ball and then connected on 1-of-2 free throws after being fouled.
After a Stanford 3-point attempt rimmed out, Scott came away with the rebound, then gave the Buffs a four-point lead by hitting two free throws.
Talton was the last Buff to go to the free throw line, making one of two and putting CU up 59-56. Randle had one last chance to be Stanford’s hero, but his final trey attempt was off the mark.
CU, which led 33-28 at halftime, got some first-half production from Ben Mills and Eli Stalzer (seven points combined) to help the offense find its groove. The Buffs shot close to 50 percent from the field (11-of-24) while holding Stanford to merely 30 percent shooting (10-of-32) in the first 20 minutes.
Colorado benefited as forward Dwight Powell, Stanford’s second- leading scorer (14.6 ppg) and rebounder (7.5 rpg), limited himself by picking up three personal fouls in the first half and then committing his fourth personal with 11:54 remaining in the game.
Powell would foul out with 2 minutes remaining in the contest, finishing with just eight points and two rebounds in 28 minutes.
Under Boyle, Colorado is now 39-2 when out-rebounding and holding its opponent to under 40 percent from the field. The Buffaloes edged Stanford 39-31 on the boards and held the Cardinal to 36 percent (21-of-57) on its field goal attempts.
Colorado concludes the regular season and its Bay-Area road trip with a game at California on Saturday (4:30 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Network). The Pac-12 Tournament begins on March 12 in Las Vegas.